Protesting during a pandemic (split)

[dyqik]

EACL was clear: these people acted as idiots, whatever identity they also possess is irrelevent.

Of course identity is relevant.

Not to the coronavirus it isn't.

It is relevant to the coronavirus. Black people are more likely to die from it than white people, due to the structural racism issues these protests are against.

[EACLucifer]

Again, I'm talking about language.

What language do you think appropriate for people organising a mass gathering with chanting in the middle of a f.cking pandemic in about the worst hit country in the world because of events in another country? Idiots is mild. Idiots is pulling punches. Idiots is milder than I usually call people for a lot less.

I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".

I was talking about British people, a lot of whom are not black, almost all late teens and twentysomethings, who are at lower risk than others from the virus due to age, but every bit as capable of spreading it.

[dyqik]

What language do you think appropriate for people organising a mass gathering with chanting in the middle of a f.cking pandemic in about the worst hit country in the world because of events in another country? Idiots is mild. Idiots is pulling punches. Idiots is milder than I usually call people for a lot less.

I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".

I was talking about British people, a lot of whom are not black, almost all late teens and twentysomethings, who are at lower risk than others from the virus due to age, but every bit as capable of spreading it.

I've asked the mods to split this off, as your continued self-justification for using abusive language is derailing the discussion of US racism.

[lpm]

Covid is a major factor in what happens next in the USA. How to protest is a vitally important question.

You can't just separate out racism and Covid and Trump into different threads. They are intertwined, making 2020 one of the worst crisis in American history.

[Herainestold]

I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".

Somewhere between 10 000 and 20 000 black American men have died of covid so far. More than that numberr are killed by police. It is a genocide.

[dyqik]

Covid is a major factor in what happens next in the USA. How to protest is a vitally important question.

You can't just separate out racism and Covid and Trump into different threads. They are intertwined, making 2020 one of the worst crisis in American history.

Sure. But you can take your desire to justify abusive language elsewhere. It's utterly irrelevant to either issue.

[EACLucifer]

I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".

Somewhere between 10 000 and 20 000 black American men have died of covid so far. More than that numberr are killed by police. It is a genocide.

This is a misleading reading of it, because sadly I made the mistake of posting a stat that did not compare like with like. The number of people of all races killed each year by American police is under a thousand. This is still dozens of times higher than many European police forces, and unacceptably high, but that stat was arrived at, as far as I can tell, by comparing a lifetime risk - specifically for young African American men - with a risk only over the last few months for the population as a whole with coronavirus.

[dyqik]

I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".

Somewhere between 10 000 and 20 000 black American men have died of covid so far. More than that numberr are killed by police. It is a genocide.

This is a misleading reading of it, because sadly I made the mistake of posting a stat that did not compare like with like. The number of people of all races killed each year by American police is under a thousand. This is still dozens of times higher than many European police forces, and unacceptably high, but that stat was arrived at, as far as I can tell, by comparing a lifetime risk - specifically for young African American men - with a risk only over the last few months for the population as a whole with coronavirus.

You should also probably fold in prison related deaths though, and then you have to somehow fold in the fact that CoVID deaths for Black Americans are higher because of healthcare disparities, which is also related.

And I don't think we have good numbers on the numbers killed by police each year, because no one in government collects those numbers.

On the timescales, if having non-fatal CoVID-19 confers a significant immunity and/or a vaccine comes along, it's going to die down again in some amount of time. It'll be a one off blip on mortality lasting a few years. Life-time risk of police brutality and the other things above is probably the correct comparison to make. And being subject to police brutality almost certainly makes it more likely to reoccur when it isn't fatal - the opposite of immunity.

[dyqik]

Aside from the stats, you have to remember that fear of police brutality is lived experience for a large number of Black Americans. Meanwhile CoVID-19 is still largely a theoretical risk for the majority of people. People are scared of it, but it's not something they can say they've experienced fear of day-to-day for years.

[Bird on a Fire]

Quite a few reports have come in this evening about various posts on this thread.

I've started a thread in the mod forum so the others can decide if any action is necessary, and if so what. Until then I'm going to stay out of the discussions here and in the modroom.

[Millennie Al]

My point was about the language we use to discuss the protestors. People who are not part of the black community in particular need to listen more and react less, and when they do react should avoid being dismissive, insulting, etc. Let's not police how black people express their outrage.

If we cannot treat black people as just people rather than a special group desrving of special treatment, then that's racist.

By all means decide whether or not a protest is misguided, but that should include consideration of who they are and why they're there.

Ah really? So it's ok for black people to go out and protest, but not for white people. Or to follow the consequences of that, this is a problem for black people so they should fix it themselves. That's racist.

People are protesting systemic racism against black people.

Yes. People are. Just people. Not black people or white people. Racism should be equally offensive to everyone. Not just to the people who are discriminated against.

Calling those protestors idiots is part of the problem, given that many of the organisers and participants are black people. (If the protest organisers and participants were all white, it wouldn't be so problematic. Calling white people idiots is not part of the problem.)

Treating people differently based on their colour is the very essence of the problem. Not part of its solution. You can decide people are idiotic or not based on things like whether the protest is in America or Britain, but not based on their race.

[Millennie Al]

And I don't think we have good numbers on the numbers killed by police each year, because no one in government collects those numbers.

Not government, but see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- ... s-database

[Squeak]

My point was about the language we use to discuss the protestors. People who are not part of the black community in particular need to listen more and react less, and when they do react should avoid being dismissive, insulting, etc. Let's not police how black people express their outrage.

If we cannot treat black people as just people rather than a special group desrving of special treatment, then that's racist.

By all means decide whether or not a protest is misguided, but that should include consideration of who they are and why they're there.

Ah really? So it's ok for black people to go out and protest, but not for white people. Or to follow the consequences of that, this is a problem for black people so they should fix it themselves. That's racist.

People are protesting systemic racism against black people.

Yes. People are. Just people. Not black people or white people. Racism should be equally offensive to everyone. Not just to the people who are discriminated against.

Calling those protestors idiots is part of the problem, given that many of the organisers and participants are black people. (If the protest organisers and participants were all white, it wouldn't be so problematic. Calling white people idiots is not part of the problem.)

Treating people differently based on their colour is the very essence of the problem. Not part of its solution. You can decide people are idiotic or not based on things like whether the protest is in America or Britain, but not based on their race.

For much the same reason that women don't much like being patronised by men who "don't see" gender, and LGBTIQ people get a bit annoyed by straight people who think equality means ignoring the effect of centuries of sexuality-based mistreatment, people of colour have been very loudly and for a very long time trying to explain why the kind of "colour-blind" thinking you are exhibiting here is racist. In a world where people have long been mistreated on the basis of skin tone, complaining that the people who are attempting to change specific kinds of race-based mistreatment are the ones who are *really* racist is tone deaf. It requires you to actively ignore what the people complaining about the mistreatment are saying.

You're right in that racism *should* be offensive to everyone. I just wish that you could see the way that you are repeating old tropes that allow you to brush away the lived experience of the people on the receving end of the mistreatment. Then you might be as offended as I am by what you've written here.

Identity does matter because it drives so much of how the world treats you and how you interact with the world as it is. In the current context, people of colour seem to be particularly affected by COVID and are very much more affected by police violence than I am, so they have more skin in the game and I should listen to their assessment of the value of the protests and their risk assessment. My aim is to be supportive of actions that help our world become kinder and fairer and that means letting the people primarily affected by a particular kind of injustice be the ones to lead the conversation.

[Gentleman Jim]

For much the same reason that women don't much like being patronised by men who "don't see" gender, and LGBTIQ people get a bit annoyed by straight people who think equality means ignoring the effect of centuries of sexuality-based mistreatment, people of colour have been very loudly and for a very long time trying to explain why the kind of "colour-blind" thinking you are exhibiting here is racist. In a world where people have long been mistreated on the basis of skin tone, complaining that the people who are attempting to change specific kinds of race-based mistreatment are the ones who are *really* racist is tone deaf. It requires you to actively ignore what the people complaining about the mistreatment are saying.

You're right in that racism *should* be offensive to everyone. I just wish that you could see the way that you are repeating old tropes that allow you to brush away the lived experience of the people on the receving end of the mistreatment. Then you might be as offended as I am by what you've written here.

Identity does matter because it drives so much of how the world treats you and how you interact with the world as it is. In the current context, people of colour seem to be particularly affected by COVID and are very much more affected by police violence than I am, so they have more skin in the game and I should listen to their assessment of the value of the protests and their risk assessment. My aim is to be supportive of actions that help our world become kinder and fairer and that means letting the people primarily affected by a particular kind of injustice be the ones to lead the conversation.

+lots

[lpm]

What's perfectly true in normal times is not true in a pandemic.

We can't currently act as separated segments of a population, awarding one group its own decision-making, its own risk assessment, it's own conversation. Lockdown only works as a collective endeavour across the entire population.

An illegal protest of more than six people isn't a problem because it breaks the law - we're all happy for the law to be broken at times in order to have a protest, e.g. breaking the law on a curfew. It's a problem because it damages our collective health. In this instance, an illegal gathering of more than six people spreads the virus and leads directly to deaths of the vulnerable, elderly and poor.

We simply can't let one group make its own assessment on protesting, particularly when safer - and probably more dramatic - forms of protest are currently available. Where's the solidarity with others? A progressive protest without solidarity isn't progressive.

[Fishnut]

I think this is a useful tweet for this discussion,

https://twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/12 ... 6191247361

Screenshot 2020-06-04 at 12.07.52.png (146.84 KiB) Viewed 3406 times

Coronavirus will come and go but systemic and institutional racism will remain unless we do something about it. Black people have been dying disproportionately compared to white people but the only time that seems to ever be discussed (not necessarily here but in general) is as a way of arguing that the protests shouldn't be happening. It feels very much like the way that, for example, male sexual assault only ever seems to get mentioned during discussions of female sexual assault. It's an important point but not when it's being used as a way of distracting under the guise of caring. I don't even know if these protests would be so big if it weren't for the pandemic as it's brought into stark numerical relief just how deadly racism is. No-one can avoid it. And maybe the protests are getting more notice because people are quite literally putting their lives on the line in an effort to be heard.

[lpm]

I agree it's a useful tweet for this discussion. It's pretty shocking.

It expresses the Dominic Cummings view of the lockdown: "my individual position feels more important in my own life than coronavirus". Saying people should act according to what impacts their own lives is the foundation of Thatcherism. The tweet's author is basically saying there's no such thing as society.

We as a society have decided we need to lockdown. The Cummings approach of individual decision making is a direct attack on social justice, solidarity and citizenship.

[Fishnut]

This is not about individualism and to pretend that it is misses a massive amount of context that I can only assume is being wilfully missed for the purpose of engendering debate. This is a risk/benefit analysis. The risk of catching and spreading coronavirus is being seen as less of a concern than the benefit of hopefully significantly fracturing the hold that racism has had on the western world. These aren't people just out fighting for some pet cause. They are people fighting for their lives and the lives of others. To say it's selfish to do so is incredibly disingenuous.

There is a society, but it is a society that has systematically marginalised and oppressed Black people. They are not stupid. They are not selfish. That they have decided to risk so much to go and protest now should show just how important an issue this is.

[dyqik]

This is not about individualism and to pretend that it is misses a massive amount of context that I can only assume is being wilfully missed for the purpose of engendering debate. This is a risk/benefit analysis. The risk of catching and spreading coronavirus is being seen as less of a concern than the benefit of hopefully significantly fracturing the hold that racism has had on the western world. These aren't people just out fighting for some pet cause. They are people fighting for their lives and the lives of others. To say it's selfish to do so is incredibly disingenuous.

There is a society, but it is a society that has systematically marginalised and oppressed Black people. They are not stupid. They are not selfish. That they have decided to risk so much to go and protest now should show just how important an issue this is.

This.

But LPM knows how black people should think, so they're going to keep telling us how black people are wrong to judge a lifetime of oppression as more important than a new temporary risk.

Also, the idea that mass protests against the systematic oppression of a significant fraction of the US population is individualism in action is rather silly.

[lpm]

Let's try that tweet for everything else.

Spoke to lots of people at Durdle Door today about how they felt about gathering on a beach during a pandemic.

And every single one said the daily reality of lockdown - the misery of being trapped indoors, bored & sulky kids, family being damaged by the frustration - felt more important in their own lives than coronavirus.

Spoke to Dominic Cummings and his family at Barnard Castle today about how they felt about travelling during a pandemic.

And every single one said the daily reality of the lockdown rules - not seeing family, worries about childcare, being confined to a single London house - felt more important in their own lives than coronavirus.

To repeat, a little strand of RNA is unaware of the nobleness of any cause. It wants to travel on public transport, meet lots of new people in a crowd and be unhindered by distance or masks. Crowds at Dorset beaches or Trafalgar Square are all the same to it. Both will help it spread to the old and vulnerable and rack up its body count.

The risk/benefit analysis has been done. Our society decided to lockdown as a result of this analysis. We are still in lockdown. Nobody is entitled to do their own individual risk/benefit analysis - if we don't do it as a collective then its pointless. Don't pretend this is about people risking their own lives when you know perfectly well it's about risking other peoples lives.

We simply can't act as individuals and subgroups in a pandemic. We've known since 1940 that individuals can't make their own lighting choices when society has decided on a blackout. It's quite amazing to see people here parroting the anti-lockdown rhetoric of Nicholas Ridley and Allison Pearson, the right-wing fantasy that individual choices make no difference to others in society.

[dyqik]

Let's try that tweet for everything else.

Spoke to lots of people at Durdle Door today about how they felt about gathering on a beach during a pandemic.

And every single one said the daily reality of lockdown - the misery of being trapped indoors, bored & sulky kids, family being damaged by the frustration - felt more important in their own lives than coronavirus.

Spoke to Dominic Cummings and his family at Barnard Castle today about how they felt about travelling during a pandemic.

And every single one said the daily reality of the lockdown rules - not seeing family, worries about childcare, being confined to a single London house - felt more important in their own lives than coronavirus.

To repeat, a little strand of RNA is unaware of the nobleness of any cause. It wants to travel on public transport, meet lots of new people in a crowd and be unhindered by distance or masks. Crowds at Dorset beaches or Trafalgar Square are all the same to it. Both will help it spread to the old and vulnerable and rack up its body count.

The risk/benefit analysis has been done. Our society decided to lockdown as a result of this analysis. We are still in lockdown. Nobody is entitled to do their own individual risk/benefit analysis - if we don't do it as a collective then its pointless. Don't pretend this is about people risking their own lives when you know perfectly well it's about risking other peoples lives.

We simply can't act as individuals and subgroups in a pandemic. We've known since 1940 that individuals can't make their own lighting choices when society has decided on a blackout. It's quite amazing to see people here parroting the anti-lockdown rhetoric of Nicholas Ridley and Allison Pearson, the right-wing fantasy that individual choices make no difference to others in society.

I get it. You think that black people should put up with a life of oppression so that you can have a little temporary security.

The risk/benefit analysis has been done by white society. The risk/benefit analysis for black people is different. You have not done that analysis for them, and you do not get to tell them how to weigh oppression vs risks of coronavirus.

[lpm]

Faking a misunderstanding of what someone has written is pathetic trolling, dyqik.

Let's all do it, shall we?

"I get it, dyqik. You think that elderly people should die gasping for breath in an ICU so that you can have a little virtue signalling."

Such fun.

[Gfamily]

Until the situation eases sufficiently, maybe not until parliament can resume sitting and voting in person, we should not have any outdoor protest meetings.

But I'm not sure that there's much real value in continuing the exchange of views.

[dyqik]

Faking a misunderstanding of what someone has written is pathetic trolling, dyqik.

Let's all do it, shall we?

"I get it, dyqik. You think that elderly people should die gasping for breath in an ICU so that you can have a little virtue signalling."

Such fun.

I'm not misunderstanding or faking anything here. You are arguing that the white dominated society has decided whether coronavirus, which affects white and black people, or police brutality against black people is more important for black people, and so black people and the white people that support racial equality should stop protesting.

[tom p]

Covid is a major factor in what happens next in the USA. How to protest is a vitally important question.

You can't just separate out racism and Covid and Trump into different threads. They are intertwined, making 2020 one of the worst crisis in American history.

Sure. But you can take your desire to justify abusive language elsewhere. It's utterly irrelevant to either issue.

Abusive? FFS.
Read EAC's second post explaining better what he meant.
As much as I usually disagree with him, he is clearly correct about this (and so, sadly, is the excerable sheldrake's latest sockpuppet).
Going to Trafalgar Square to protest US police violence right now is foolish in the extreme.
COVID is disproportionately seriously affecting BAME people. This will partly be due to societal factors (institutional racism leading to BAME people being poorer than caucasian people on average), but also may partly be due to greater cutaneous melanin levels leading to decreased UV B absorption and thus decreased vitamin D production and thus reduced immune function.
Black people in London are generally not very well off & property in london costs a lot of money.
Ergo young & youngish people are likely to be living with mum & dad (and maybe also grandma+/-grandad). Going out unnecessarily on the tube/bus to trafalgar square & being squashed there and chanting a lot is a significant covid-catching risk. Then going home to your family is a significant spreading risk.
This protest could genuinely kill black people. Potentially more than are killed by the cops in the uk in any given month.
Ergo EAC's wording was appropriate.
Skin tone and degree of anger at a current news event are not protective factors against stupidity. To say, as birdy did, that one cannot call a group of predominately black people idiots for doing an idiotic thing that could kill their granny, purely because they are predominately black is a form of well-intentioned but undeniable racism.